Ask The Best And Brightest: Is This A Speed Camera That You Can Live With?
Speed cameras are right up there with ethanol, left-lane bandits and electric power steering on our automotive shit list, but The Fun Theory and Kevin Richardson think they may have found a way to make the robot nannies more palatable. If you pass a speed camera at or under the speed limit, you are entered into a lottery to win the fines paid by motorists who speed past the camera. In short, Richardson’s idea takes the revenue motivation for speed cameras away from local governments and democratizes it. But then you still have to submit to constant surveillance, and this also doesn’t prevent the increase in accidents that often accompanies speed cameras. But does this make speed cameras more palatable, or is this simply a pointless sugar-coating of a fundamentally flawed approach to road safety?
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So the way to maximize my odds and possible return from this system is to do two things: 1. Not speed 2. Encourage everyone else to
As long as we're dreaming, and the goal, as I understand it, is to get everyone to slow down... A) Put a big flatscreen tv above the camera B) Drivers going by at or below the speed limit can watch a few seconds of naked pr0n C) Most will circle back, go by again, only slower D) And again E) Some may actually pull over and slow to the point of parked
Isn't the real objection to speed cameras (not red light cameras) the fact that it skews the odds that we all count on when speeding? We all rely on the fact that speeding drivers far outnumber policemen looking for speeders, and thus hold down the odds that we'll get tagged on any given trip that we speed. However, cameras can catch an almost unlimited number of speeders, thus the odds of getting tagged go up accordingly. Unless you are going to argue that speed limits are set inappropriately in a given camera location (as sometimes is the case when the local govt is trying to trick/trap unsuspecting drivers), speed cameras are not inherently evil.
I prefer the topless Danish babes holding speed limit signs. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/28/bikini_bandits/